Humor appears to be an elusive skill. Sure you can rattle off a sarcastic or witty reply to a friend but is that true humor?
There must be a subject of the humor: something or someone. Then there are types of humor: slapstick, crass, intellectual, sarcastic, cultural, etc. The audience is also important. Will they laugh where you think its funny or will they laugh where your writing has turned serious (at least so you think).
I love Janet Evanovich’s Plum series and want to write similarly funny novels but with a technical/computery bent. I would rather people enjoy themselves are a little while than ‘discuss’ my work for a few hundred years. But along with Janet, I want to write great stories with solid humor.
I scanned the web for similar authors and found lists of authors ‘like Janet.’ I recently read my first one, Laura Levine’s ‘This Pen for hire.’ The writing is funny but its sarcastic-funny, not self-deprecating funny. I think of sarcasism as snarky ‘who do you think you are?’ kind of humor.
The Plum series is self-deprecating because the story is told first person POV from Stephanie Plum who doesn’t know a lot and is more concerned with her own short-comings than everyone else. There is some sarcasm but a little goes a long way which Janet does well.
I’ll read the next book on the ‘Like Janet’ list and report back here.
Excellent – because do love the Plum series, as well. And as a rather relentless reader, I occasionally run into a book that has a similar sort of enjoyment… I’ll have to run through my memory and let you know what (if anything) I can come up with.